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This is a scare tactic.  If you pass any regulation, any regulation at all, we'll lose the Chevrons of the world!  Our approach has been successful, but so have the approaches of New York and London, the economic capitals of the world, both of which have plenty of regulations. 

 

Incidentally I never even suggested regulations, just made a comment on the shortsightedness of certain decisions, and here are all the usual tired arguments about regulations.

 

 

 

As I noted, the timing of and reasons for the desirability of any given city will be different. NYC and London are economic centers because of the industries that grew out of their ports, ditto SF, before any of them had "plenty of regulations".  Now they just cater to the extremely rich while back office functions have long since moved to other cities.  We have no such luxury at the moment to charge a premium, and we do a lot better when tech and financial bubbles bust, because only the most profitable and risky companies can pay the rent in such places. 

 

If you are not even suggesting regulation, what did you have in mind when you mentioned that "people need to be held accountablewhen alter their own property in a way that someone else deems trendy or short sighted? Do you really think that restrictive regulation on the use of private property is costless or do you just not care because someone you do not like very much will have to pay it? 

Edited by Nate99
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As I noted, the timing of and reasons for the desirability of any given city will be different. NYC and London are economic centers because of the industries that grew out of their ports, ditto SF, before any of them had "plenty of regulations". Now they just cater to the extremely rich while back office functions have long since moved to other cities. We have no such luxury at the moment to charge a premium, and we do a lot better when tech and financial bubbles bust, because only the most profitable and risky companies can pay the rent in such places.

If you are not even suggesting regulation, what did you have in mind when you mentioned that "people need to be held accountable" when alter their own property in a way that someone else deems trendy or short sighted? Do you really think that restrictive regulation on the use of private property is costless or do you just not care because someone you do not like very much will have to pay it?

You said "there is a reason" that Chevron is sending their lower offices here from San Francisco, implying that historic preservation laws would jeopardize our advantage in this respect. I call bs. If Chevron is pulling jobs out of the SF area, it has much more to do with the high costs arising from 8 million people living around a huge bay and other geographical limits such as water supply than it does historic preservation laws. If downtown SF got too expensive, it's probably bc of its high land costs owing to desirability and the fact that it is half surrounded by water, not preservation laws. To suggest that we are going the way of SF in terms of attracting back office jobs if we pass preservation laws is absurd and will be treated as such.

Once again, I personally did not suggest regulations, just couldn't resist answering your either/or warnings and economic prophesying. When I said "people need to be held accountable" I meant in the court of public opinion. We have two buildings being torn down or heavily renovated that, if left in their original condition, would be viable today. If you've read many of my posts you'll know that I believe in architectural criticism, one of the functions of which is to foster a better understanding of the value of the past as regards buildings and styles, and to encourage long term vs. short term thinking.

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You said "there is a reason" that Chevron is sending their lower offices here from San Francisco, implying that historic preservation laws would jeopardize our advantage in this respect. I call bs. If Chevron is pulling jobs out of the SF area, it has much more to do with the high costs arising from 8 million people living around a huge bay and other geographical limits such as water supply than it does historic preservation laws. If downtown SF got too expensive, it's probably bc of its high land costs owing to desirability and the fact that it is half surrounded by water, not preservation laws. To suggest that we are going the way of SF in terms of attracting back office jobs if we pass preservation laws is absurd and will be treated as such.

Once again, I personally did not suggest regulations, just couldn't resist answering your either/or warnings and economic prophesying. When I said "people need to be held accountable" I meant in the court of public opinion. We have two buildings being torn down or heavily renovated that, if left in their original condition, would be viable today. If you've read many of my posts you'll know that I believe in architectural criticism, one of the functions of which is to foster a better understanding of the value of the past as regards buildings and styles, and to encourage long term vs. short term thinking.

 

The court of public opinion is always open for business. 

 

I did not intend my implication of Chevron's reasons for leaving SF to be so narrowly interpreted, but restrictions that make business more expensive in one city versus another are a relevant consideration for the future. If you think that's absurd BS, you're welcome to your opinion.  My opinion is that people that like to pretend one type of restriction is costless or negligible in any given business decision tend to believe anything they can dream up will be borne by the market without consequence, up to the point that price controls push median rent to $3.5K per month and baristas and hotel staff have to commute 2 hours a day. SF can get away with that, we can not. 

 

You can pretend that I'm arguing that this is a binary choice on one isolated regulation if you like because of my Chevron example, but I am not. I'm sure they had many reasons and there were many underlying circumstances that gave rise to those conditions, but more restrictions do not make things cheaper.  You are also ignoring SF's rent controls and new development restrictions that drive scarcity; these are the types of regulations that, along with preservation laws, make it more expensive to live and do business in a given city. Given that there are people still willing to pay in SF, those are restrictions that they are welcome to place on their city. Our success is not going to go that direction for the foreseeable future. Everyone would want to live in SF, you have to pay people to live here, lucky for us, we're good at that. 

 

There is a spectrum that everything will fall upon, and I will push for public opinion to consider the costs that people that share your opinions tend to ignore. 

 

I'm interested why you think that people with money to spend do not share your opinion on the viability of these old structures that are being demolilshed. 

 

On the surface, I think it is very odd that anyone would knock down this building or the Houston Club when so many empty blocks are available so near by, but I'm not going to "hold people accountable" for doing what they want to do with their stuff with my indignation over how it looks, or at least I won't expect anyone to care if I do.  My guess is that renting out a renovated building only works when someone subsidizes the renovation and that commercial office space fits this model very poorly, but new construction office space makes a lot of money. 

 

I'll go back to posting pictures from here, I'm not changing your mind. 

Edited by Nate99
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You're right, but most of the office is concentrating in the northeast part.

 

I think you're generally right, the hot area right now is the northern/northeastern end of the existing office mass, with Hines, Skanska, Crescent, and Stream/Essex all working on projects in this area. It used to be the west side back in the 70's/80's since the powerful wanted to see and be seen from the part of town where they lived, but they ran up against parks and freeway over there. But the historic district renaissance that began with the Rice Lofts in the late 90's has made the north side most attractive, unless you want to build a giant campus like Chevron.

 

The east side is also attractive due to Discovery Green, but the south/southeastern sides are still the gloomier parts of downtown, with nothing but cheaper land to really attract developers. Development is also of course limited by access to the tunnel system, and there aren't many available sites on the s/se side that have easy access.

Edited by H-Town Man
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Of all the space downtown, why are developers honing in on a particular section? Southeast downtown is begging for development.

 

I am 100% sure that the answer is that these lots tie into the existing tunnel system. That is the difference between a Class A building and a Class B. Most thought that Trammel Crowe were takling a HUGE risk building Discovery Tower off of the tunner system. The proximity to Discovery Green paid off and that is what makes it a Class A Building.

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I am 100% sure that the answer is that these lots tie into the existing tunnel system. That is the difference between a Class A building and a Class B. Most thought that Trammel Crowe were takling a HUGE risk building Discovery Tower off of the tunner system. The proximity to Discovery Green paid off and that is what makes it a Class A Building.

 

Discovery Tower is attached to 5 Houston Center via skywalk, so functionally, I see it as attached. You can get to/from the tunnels without going outside. 

 

Not sure if there is a stricter definition of Class A/B though. 

Edited by Nate99
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Wish I took a photo of it today, but someone really needs to get a shot of the existing tower. All windows are gone. You can see through most of the top floor(s?). At this pace, I really expect this to be down by March. They are moving rather quickly.

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I think everyone must be suffering from project fatigue. Everyone is getting so short and angry.
I visit a lot of different types of site and I must say there is more one up man ship and attacking going on here than

most of the other serious blogs. Not counting the crap you see in the comment sections of the paper.

I know these are life and death issues everyone is discussing here but I think the sometimes we take it a little too serious.

 

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I think everyone must be suffering from project fatigue. Everyone is getting so short and angry.

I visit a lot of different types of site and I must say there is more one up man ship and attacking going on here than

most of the other serious blogs. Not counting the crap you see in the comment sections of the paper.

I know these are life and death issues everyone is discussing here but I think the sometimes we take it a little too serious.

 

You shut your mouth when youre talking to me!

 

;)

 

no for real, comments sections of the paper are like reading a social experiment on what people used to say outloud. Steer clear. 

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I think everyone must be suffering from project fatigue. Everyone is getting so short and angry.

I visit a lot of different types of site and I must say there is more one up man ship and attacking going on here than

most of the other serious blogs. Not counting the crap you see in the comment sections of the paper.

I know these are life and death issues everyone is discussing here but I think the sometimes we take it a little too serious.

 

It is only really bad when we are dealing with skyscrapers... everything else is water under the bridge apparently!

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the first four wards have their dividing lines at Main and Texas, so that's hy the quadrants are divided there.

why redraw the map....lol

Becaus the physical boundaries have rebounded downtown. The highways redefined what is considered downtown.

Off topic but have you meet some of those weirdos who call most areas in the loop downtown?

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Becaus the physical boundaries have rebounded downtown. The highways redefined what is considered downtown.

Off topic but have you meet some of those weirdos who call most areas in the loop downtown?

Some jerks at work think Kirby at 59 is k

Downtown. $*@&@%!.

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you did get it in the shot. you can barely see the rendering in the lower right.. has any of the building come down yet or are they still gutting it? kind of hard to tell from this angle if they have removed any of the roof.

 

I meant to say, I thought I got the whole thing in the frame, but you can just see it, I think it is new.

 

They have started taking pieces of the exterior off. It looks like they cover it up with the black cloth to keep debris from flying while they are actively removing structure. You can see bare steel from certain angles. 

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